As many in the argumentation studies community know next week is OSSA 9, one of the bigger events on our calendars. The conference theme this go around is “Argumentation, Cognition and Community”. Having had a look at the schedule I think this promises to be an interesting conference. Many leading scholars in argumentation, informal logic, rhetoric, and normative pragmatics will be there presenting and responding to papers. There is also a good range of strong papers by up and coming scholars as well. This is one to look forward to, if you’ll be coming.
All the pertinent information for OSSA, including .pdf downloads of the schedule and abstracts among other things, can be accessed here.
Unfortunately, as we all know, not everyone who would like to attend can attend. These are tough times and many of us find ourselves at institutions who can’t always support travel to events like these as often or to the degree that they would wish. For those who won’t be coming but want to follow along, I thought I might propose a conference back-channel on Twitter with the hashtag #OSSA2011. Those of us who have Twitter accounts and will be there could post about discussions, sessions, workshops, and everything else OSSA between sessions or whenever else we have the chance. That way those who cannot come can follow along. An added benefit is that those of us who are there will be able get to know each other a little better and to coordinate a little easier when it comes to dinner plans, taxi rides, etc.. (To get a better idea of how it works, you might check out this post from the innovative and consistently helpful ProfHacker blog on the Chronicle of Higher Ed website.)
If you’re interested, let me know! You can comment here or post to Twitter including “#OSSA2011” somewhere in your tweet.